A number of systems and programs are offered on the market for the design, the engineering and the manufacturing of objects. CAD is an acronym for Computer-Aided Design, e.g. it relates to software solutions for designing an object. CAE is an acronym for Computer-Aided Engineering, e.g. it relates to software solutions for simulating the physical behavior of a future product. CAM is an acronym for Computer-Aided Manufacturing, e.g. it relates to software solutions for defining manufacturing processes and operations. In such computer-aided design systems, the graphical user interface plays an important role as regards the efficiency of the technique. These techniques may be embedded within Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems. PLM refers to a business strategy that helps companies to share product data, apply common processes, and leverage corporate knowledge for the development of products from conception to the end of their life, across the concept of extended enterprise.
The PLM solutions provided by DASSAULT SYSTEMES (under the trademarks CATIA, ENOVIA and DELMIA) provide an Engineering Hub, which organizes product engineering knowledge, a Manufacturing Hub, which manages manufacturing engineering knowledge, and an Enterprise Hub which enables enterprise integrations and connections into both the Engineering and Manufacturing Hubs. All together the system delivers an open object model linking products, processes, resources to enable dynamic, knowledge-based product creation and decision support that drives optimized product definition, manufacturing preparation, production and service.
Different frameworks are provided to industrial designers for the design of a three-dimensional modeled object. In the most widely spread framework, industrial designers perform their designs via procedural relationships. More precisely, industrial designers define basic geometries and a history of procedures that transform the basic geometries into more elaborate objects that are hierarchically connected according to the history of procedures, so as to form the indented complex model. This framework is the most preferred framework, notably because it allows skilled designers to perform their design relatively fast. Indeed, using adequate procedures, one can achieve a complex model in relatively few operations. A reference on this topic is “Handbook of solid modeling”; Donald E Lacourse, Ed.: Mac Graw Hill.
In another framework, industrial designers perform their design via non-procedural relationships. More precisely, industrial designers define basic geometries and, afterwards, live relationships between the geometries, so that the set of basic geometries respecting the set of constraints forms the intended complex model.
Within this context, there is still a need for an improved solution to design a 3D modeled object.